Trump’s presidency is ruining American society, and now he’s chosen to inflict chaos on Venezuela

The Venezuelan attack is the beginning of a tragedy which could impact the globe, a reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to inflict danger and chaos on the world.

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

In the chaotic theatre of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the curtain has risen on a spectacle of hubris and hypocrisy. Just one year into his second term, Trump has orchestrated an illegal military raid on Venezuela, violating international law by capturing President Nicolás Maduro in a brazen act of gunboat diplomacy that reeks of 19th-century imperialism.

Trump crowed about the operation from his Mar-a-Lago lair, declaring that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe transition” could be engineered—presumably one that hands Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to American corporations on a silver platter. But why now? Why expend energy and resources to meddle in a sovereign nation’s affairs when Americans are buckling under the weight of Trump’s disastrous economic policies? The answer is as cynical as it is transparent. This fiasco is a desperate smokescreen to distract from the Epstein files, those damning documents that threaten to expose Trump’s sordid ties to the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump’s re-election in 2024 was sold on the promise of “America First”—a slogan that evoked isolationism and a focus on domestic issues. What Americans have gotten instead is a deranged president who struts like a would-be emperor, now threatening Colombia with invasion on the same pretext he used to abduct the Venezuelan president, while musing about using military force to annex Greenland. This isn’t remotely close to the leadership for which Americans voted. It’s a reckless grab for resources that endangers global stability and betrays the very voters who put him back in the White House. At a time when tariffs have ignited inflation, gas prices are far higher than he promised they would be, and the economy teeters on the brink of recession, Trump’s foreign adventurism is not just irresponsible, it’s an epic betrayal of his MAGA base.

On the economy Trump’s tariff policy, hailed by the president as a masterstroke to punish foreign competitors, has boomeranged into a punishing blow for everyday Americans. Economists warned that these levies would act like a hidden tax, and they’ve been proven right. Inflation, which dipped to 2.3% in April 2025, climbed as high as 3% by September 2025, fuelled directly by higher import costs. Gas prices, averaging US$2.94 a gallon in December 2025, are up from pre-tariff levels, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attributing the spike to Trump’s policies. The effective tariff rate has ballooned to 18%, pushing consumer prices higher across the board—coffee, bread, appliances, electronics, you name it. Goldman Sachs estimates that tariffs could add 0.3 percentage points to core inflation in 2026, with households bearing up to 70% of the US$1.2 trillion cost.

Trump claims that managing the economy has been one of his crowning achievements. But that claim has been proven to be a bald faced lies with economists and experts refuting the assertion. Economic growth projections have been slashed, unemployment is ticking up as tariffs hammer industries reliant on imports, and the Tax Foundation warns that these policies will shrink America’s GDP by 0.5% before foreign retaliation affects the US. Trump’s boastful claims that prices are “coming down tremendously” are pure fiction. Core inflation peaked at 3% year-over-year in September 2025. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of Americans—about 24% of households—are living pay cheque to pay cheque, a figure that has risen steadily under Trump’s watch. Lower-income families have been hit hardest, with 29% scraping by as wage growth stagnates. This isn’t a “winning” scenario, it’s lousy, incompetent economic stewardship by a president who has left millions one missed pay cheque from disaster.

Yet instead of fixing this domestic debacle, Trump turned his gaze to South American, proclaiming he’ll “run Venezuela” like it’s some sort of Trump business franchise. The Venezuela fiasco isn’t about democracy or halting drug trafficking, it’s an attempt to distract the American public’s attention from the Epstein scandal which is festering like an open wound.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to declassify and release the full Epstein files, vowing transparency on the late pedophile’s web of elite enablers. He signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025, mandating full release by December 19 in a searchable format. But deadlines have come and gone. As of January 2026, the Justice Department has admitted that less than 1% of the documents have been released, citing endless redactions to “protect victims” as the reason. But what is really being protected are revelations about Trump’s close connections to Epstein that could rupture his Republican base.

The files, heavily blacked out and incomplete, hint at Trump’s deep ties to Epstein. They include flight logs, grand jury testimony, and communications that could unravel his carefully curated image. Reports reveal Trump was briefed in May 2025 that his name appeared in the files multiple times, prompting a pivot from promises of full disclosure to downplaying their importance. Victims and bipartisan lawmakers have decried the stonewalling as a cover-up, a stunt orchestrated just as speculation mounted that the files would implicate Trump in Epstein’s depravity. This isn’t a coincidence? This is deflection and misdirection on steroids, a wag-the-dog maneuver to shift headlines from Trump’s deep ties to Epstein to an act of imperialism out of the darkest chapters of the colonial era.

In addition, Trump’s threats against Colombia—calling President Gustavo Petro a “sick man” involved in cocaine trafficking and hinting at military action—echo his Venezuelan aggression. Petro, a leftist leader, has pushed back fiercely, deploying troops to his country’s borders and vowing to take up arms if invaded. Meanwhile, Trump’s renewed obsession with annexing Greenland, citing “national security,” has escalated to White House discussions of military options. Denmark’s leaders have condemned the “threats,” along with their European allies France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland rallying against this neo-colonial fantasy. This isn’t isolated blustering by Trump, but rather part of a pattern tying aggression against other nations to an agenda of evading transparency on a domestic crisis that could destroy Trump politically.

Furthermore, the attack on Venezuela is unconstitutional to its core. The US Constitution vests Congress with the sole power to declare war, a check on executive overreach that Trump has shredded. He launched this military attack without consulting members of Congress or Senators, let alone securing authorization—a blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires presidential notification within 48 hours and withdrawal after 60 days absent congressional approval. Congress neither knew nor approved this raid, making it illegal under domestic law. Trump’s flimsy justification—drug charges from a 2020 indictment against Maduro—doesn’t hold water. You don’t invade a nation to arrest its leader based on domestic US law.

While there’s no argument that Maduro is a corrupt thug, the same can be said of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Putin, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And there have been no invasions launched against those countries and neither have their leaders been abducted to stand trial in the US. Disliking a leader doesn’t grant the US or any other nation the right to overthrow governments or abduct heads of state.

Internationally, Trump’s actions are a grotesque breach of the UN Charter. Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity, a cornerstone of global order that Trump has spit upon. Legal experts decry the invasion as the “crime of aggression,” no different than Russia’s assault on Ukraine or Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. By ignoring international law, Trump has made the world exponentially more dangerous. Vladimir Putin can now point to American actions in Venezuela to justify escalating Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping could cite it as justification for moving on Taiwan. Additionally any terrorist group or rogue state might invoke “Trump logic” to launch attacks on those they deem to be threats or enemies. What Trump has done isn’t a demonstration of strength or an act of self-defence, it’s recklessness that invites global chaos and armed conflict.

At its heart, the US attack on Venezuela is blatant imperialism in support of America’s oil companies. The oil in that nation belongs to Venezuelans, not US corporations salivating over potential profits, oil that Trump has claimed belongs to the US. As the world pivots to renewable and green sources of energy, propping up fossil fuels is economic idiocy and climate suicide, an energy strategy that would fuel catastrophic climate change.

This hypocrisy guts Trump’s campaign persona, the one where he ran as the “no more wars” candidate, slamming endless foreign interventions and pledging “America First.” But in his first year since being re-elected he has launched attacks on Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, with Colombia and Greenland now in America’s cross-hairs. With 60% of Americans living month to month amid rising inflation and a wobbly economy, Trump should be laser-focused on addressing domestic issues. Instead, he’s destabilizing Venezuela while he bungles the management of domestic affairs in the US, proving again that he’s inadequate and ill equipped to manage one country, let alone two.

Americans and the global community deserve far better than this imperialistic farce. Trump’s dangerous and sociopathic leadership has impoverished Americans, eroded democracy in the US, and endangered the globe—all to dodge accountability for his ties to Epstein. For the sake of the world it’s time for the US Congress to reclaim its war powers, for the international community to sanction American aggression, charge Trump at the International Criminal Court, and for US voters to demand a leader who puts their interests first, rather than feeding his own ego. The Venezuelan attack isn’t triumph, it’s the beginning of a tragedy that is the first domino falling which could impact the globe, a stark reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to destroy nations and inflict danger and chaos on the world.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Invasion of Venezuela proves again that the US is a rogue superpower and a threat to world peace and stability

The Venezuela invasion is part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful military interventions that has made America the most destabilizing nation on Earth.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

On January 3, 2026, mere days into the new year, the United States launched a shocking military assault on Venezuela code named “Operation Absolute Resolve.” American forces conducted airstrikes on key sites in Caracas and surrounding areas, including military bases like Fort Tiuna and La Carlota airbase, before special operations teams—reportedly including Delta Force—captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, extracting them and confining them aboard the USS Iwo Jima.

President Donald Trump announced the operation triumphantly, stating that the US would temporarily “run” Venezuela and be “very strongly involved” in its oil industry again, given the nation’s vast reserves of over 303 billion barrels—the largest in the world. This blatant act of aggression, justified vaguely as a response to “narco-terrorism,” reveals the US once again as the world’s most dangerous rogue state, a nation that habitually violates international law, invades sovereign countries for strategic and economic gain, and destabilizes the world while preaching a “rules-based order” for all other nations.

The American military operation constitutes clear violations of multiple pillars of international law. It directly contravenes Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The airstrikes on Venezuelan soil and the forcible removal of a sitting head of state lack UN Security Council authorization and do not meet the strict criteria for self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter, as no imminent armed attack on the US was evident. Prominent legal experts, including Geoffrey Robertson—a former president of the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone—have called it a “crime of aggression“—the planning and execution of unlawful force, deemed the “supreme international crime” since the Nuremberg trials. Similarly, Chatham House analysts and others describe it as an “unlawful use of force” without any genuine basis in self-defence or UN resolution.

The capture of Maduro and Trump’s explicit intentions to control Venezuela’s oil resources further breach principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention, enshrined in international law and the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law. Preceding actions, such as strikes on Venezuelan vessels in international waters and seizures of oil tankers, raise concerns under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), involving unauthorized lethal force and extraterritorial actions without jurisdiction.

Global condemnation has been swift. The UN Secretary-General expressed deep alarm, stating that the action sets a “dangerous precedent“ and that “international law hasn’t been respected.” Countries including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, France, and Spain denounced the strikes as flagrant violations of sovereignty and the UN Charter. Even allies expressed concern, while enforcement remains blocked by the US veto in the Security Council.

This aggression is indistinguishable from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both involve unilateral military force against a sovereign neighbour, justified by contrived pretexts—Russia’s claims of “denazification” and threats, versus US allegations of drug trafficking without proof of imminent harm—and both aim at regime change with an underlying focus on natural resources or strategic interests.

The US vociferously condemned Russia for breaching the UN Charter and sovereignty principles, imposing sanctions and rallying global support. Yet now, America commits the same acts in Venezuela. If China were to launch a similar operation in Taiwan, citing “security threats” from US arms sales or alliances, the United States and its allies would thunderously decry violations of international law and the rules-based order. This glaring double standard exposes US disregard for international law, and its actions for what they are—a license for imperialism, where the rules bind everyone except the US and its allies.

The Venezuela invasion is not an outlier but part of a long, bipartisan US pattern of unlawful interventions that has made America the most destabilizing force in the world. Under President Dwight Eisenhower the CIA tried to pressure Egyptian King Farouk I into embracing political reforms favourable to American interests, and when he resisted they worked with disaffected members of the Egyptian military to overthrow him in a 1952 coup. In 1953 the CIA was also integral to helping install Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of as Shah of Iran, after removing the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized Iran’s oil resources.

Under President Lyndon Johnson, the US massively escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War by orchestrating the Gulf of Tonkin Incident on August 2, 1964 to justify deeper American involvement. For the next decade the US bombed and invaded North Vietnam without UN approval, resulting in over a million Vietnamese dead, along with hundreds of thousands more in Laos and Cambodia. The devastation from the war in North and South Vietnam was widespread and now more than 50 years later the nation is still recovering, and has yet to heal. 

George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of the UN Charter, with not a single American government official being held legally accountable for American crimes. George W. Bush initiated illegal wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), causing over one million deaths through violence and ensuing chaos and the destruction of civil society infrastructure. American’s “War on Terror” saw the US also violate the sovereignty of Somalia and Yemen, all without proper Security Council authorization. In total it is estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have resulted in the death of more than 4.5 million Arabs and Muslims.

Barack Obama perpetuated these conflicts while adding unilateral interventions in Libya (2011, transforming a stable state into a failed one rife with slave markets and militias), and authorized airstrikes in Syria. Joe Biden maintained ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. And in his two administrations Donald Trump ordered strikes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, frequently bypassing congressional oversight. Now, in 2026, Venezuela becomes the latest victim of America’s criminal foreign policy where any nation that doesn’t bow to US demands becomes a target of economic warfare or military assault.

This history includes dozens of coups and regime changes since 1945—from the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, to the 1954 Guatemala coup protecting United Fruit Company interests (sparking a civil war killing 200,000), to the 1973 coup in Chile which overthrew Salvador Allende, and installed Augusto Pinochet  as dictator. The early 20th-century “Banana Wars” in Central America also installed regimes compliant with America’s agenda, earning the derogatory term “banana republics.” Additionally, with over 750 military bases in 80 countries—far exceeding any historical empire—the US sustains “forever wars” that have killed 13-23 million deaths in at least 28 nations, while sanctions have crippled economies in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Every such violation and illegal act by the US breeds instability. The Iraq invasion birthed ISIS, Libya’s intervention fragmented the region and empowered warlords, Afghanistan’s occupation ultimately revived the Taliban. In the Global South, America’s insatiable hunger for resources—oil in the Middle East, minerals in Africa and Latin America—sacrifices national sovereignty and violates the UN Charter repeatedly, fuelling resentment, causing refugee crises, and energizing terrorism. Venezuela’s enormous oil wealth makes it a prime target, and Trump’s open declarations of control echo the fabricated pretexts for Iraq in 2003, where lies about weapons of mass destruction masked desires for oil dominance.

The prelude to this invasion involved months of escalation—a massive US military buildup in the Caribbean with 15,000 personnel and 150 aircraft, strikes on over 35 vessels killing at least 115 people, and seizures of oil tankers—actions already criticized as potential acts of aggression and violations of maritime law. This campaign, framed as an anti-narcotics operation but escalating to direct attacks on Venezuelan soil, underscores how the US manipulates domestic legal pretexts to bypass international norms, setting precedents that weaken the global order.

Despite Maduro’s authoritarian flaws and contested elections, Venezuela under the Chavismo ideology achieved remarkable social gains, including over 95% literacy rates and expanded healthcare access for millions lifted from poverty. Regime change here primarily opens doors for US firms like ExxonMobil and Chevron to reclaim assets nationalized years ago, prioritizing corporate interests over genuine democratic or humanitarian concerns.

Under Trump, this imperial recklessness reaches alarming heights, reviving the hegemonic shadow of the Monroe Doctrine over Central and South America. Each US transgression erodes the post-World War Two international order, encouraging lawlessness where power trumps principle. The Venezuela crisis risks wider regional conflict, akin to the sectarian spillover from Iraq, potentially drawing in allies of Venezuela like Russia or China.

The human cost is already emerging with reports of civilian and military casualties in Caracas, power outages, and fears of refugee influxes prompting border mobilizations in Colombia. This deliberate and unnecessary violence, inflicted without congressional authorization or broad international support, highlights America’s overreach alongside global illegality.

For genuine global stability, the world must work to dismantle the US empire by shutting down overseas military bases, end the sale of arms to rights abusers, lift sanctions that punish civilians, and restrain the military-industrial complex profiting from perpetual conflict. The Global South watches apprehensively, aware that any resource-rich nation defying Washington could be next in line. Until the US confronts its history of predation disguised as liberation, it remains the paramount threat to world peace—a rogue state perpetuating cycles of violence that endangers the world.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.